In 17 identical letters posted to his Truth Social account, the president said companies must lower their prices or the government ‘will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued drug pricing practices.’
President Donald Trump has appealed directly to the CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Novartis, demanding that they lower drug pricing in line with his Most Favored Nation policy proposal.
“I am calling on [company name] and every manufacturer doing business in our great country to take the following actions within the next 60 days,” the letter posted to the president’s Truth Social account reads.
The 17 identical letters were addressed to the heads of 17 Big Pharma companies: AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, BMS, Novartis, Gilead, Merck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Amgen, Genentech, GSK, J&J, Merck KGaA, Regeneron, Sanofi and Eli Lilly.
The Most Favored Nation pricing proposal would peg drug prices Americans pay to what is paid in other economically comparable nations. Trump first began discussing the idea of MFN drug pricing in April before officially unveiling the proposal in May. It seeks to use levers of the federal government, such as patent enforcement, to pressure drugmakers to lower their prices voluntarily. But many industry watchers have brushed off the idea given the government lacks the legal authority to implement the policy and the White House has yet to provide an explanation.
Analysts at BMO Capital Markets saw the letters as evidence of the weakness of the president’s stance. “Cue the groans,” the firm’s analyst Evan David Seigerman quipped.
“Although today’s announcement carries some headline shock, we continue to view it as unlikely the Trump administration will be able to successfully implement these policies—in some cases likely lacking legal standing to execute on what he outlines,” Seigerman wrote in a note Thursday afternoon.
Leerink Partners similarly dismissed the letters. “We believe the demands outlined in the open letter are unachievable.”
In the letters, Trump implored the pharma leaders to raise drug prices elsewhere to balance out what Americans pay.
“Domestic MFN pricing will require you…to negotiate harder with foreign freeloading nations. U.S. trade policy will endeavor to support this,” the letter continues before demanding that increased prices abroad, and therefore increased revenues, be “repatriated” to lower drug prices in the U.S.
In the cases of CEOs who have lobbied more extensively with President Trump, like Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Lilly CEO David Ricks, or Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer, whose company manufactured an experimental COVID-19 therapy for the president when he was ill with the disease in 2020, the typed salutation was crossed out in Trump’s handwriting and replaced with their first name.
The letters then ask that the companies extend MFN pricing to Medicaid patients, guarantee that new drugs the companies produce will also be priced at MFN rates and provide direct-to-consumer purchasing of their drugs at MFN prices.
The letters state that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CHS administrator Mehmet Oz “stand ready” to implement these terms. It is unclear under what legal mechanism the executive branch can compel pharmaceutical companies to make these changes.
“Make no mistake,” the letters continue, “a collaborative effort towards achieving global pricing parity would be the most effective path for companies, the government, and American patients. But if you refuse to step up, we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued drug pricing practices.”
The letter comes three days after the president agreed to a deal with the EU that would place a 15% levy on all pharmaceutical imports to the U.S.
